We have had snow cover now ever since Tuesday morning (5 days ago) here in the north west of England. With the freezing temperatures remaining over the last week the snow has now turned to compacted ice and there seems no sign of it thawing in the near future.
The rabbits don’t seem to bothered by the snow. We have put some extra hay in their hutch, but they just seem to eat it rather than using it for insulation. As you can see the snow in their pen is getting a little dirty and yellow. The trouble is, is that it is impossible to clean up really. It is very dangerous to try as you end up on your backside, and sweeping it up in the shovel doesn’t work. They will be OK for a few more days, but like I said they don’t seem right bothered.
Well it was about 16 months ago now that Daphne first hatched the first batch of chicks in the aviary, and over the last 4 weeks we have had batch number 4. What is special about this batch is that aswell as Daphne giving birth Christina and Hyacinth have also given birth.
If fact Christina is something of a triumph. Why? Well she was a domestic pet when we first got her from a pet shop on the way to Southport. Therefore as she always lived in the house up until the aviary arrived we are really pleased that she has gone on to produce a stunning chick, which we have named Inga. The name came from our Swedish friends and it just so happens to be that Inga is yellow and blue, which are the Swedish colours!
Well it has been about two months since the birth of Bruce and Eddie the budgies and we now have two more baby budgies that are almost fully grown. In fact they should be coming out of their box any time soon. Yesterday we managed to get them out and take some photographs of them before they learnt how to fly off.
Ewan is green and yellow in colour. We think that his dad must be Niles as he is a very similar colour to Ewan. Joshua is a white and blue colour, which is unlike any other bird in the aviary, which is slightly strange. At this stage we cannot tel whether they are boys or girls. We will have to just wait and see. What is for certain is that they are very small and very cute!
A short while ago now we constructed a ‘Pets Corner’ in the garden, which was somewhere for the rabbits and the birds to enjoy life. We finished this and then discovered that George and Jeremy could escape by literally climbing over there pen fence. We then constrcuted a futher ‘overhang’ to prevent this which worked. However for the last few days George has managed to find a way out. How was the question?
I wondred at first whether he had figured a way over the overhang section of the fence. But then again it was cleary just to much for them to scale. Therefore I just couldn’t figure out how he was getting out. The only other way I thought was literally a running jump.
Why am I so bothered you might ask? Well the real reason is the plants. If the rabbits do get into the garden there is no really problem of the escaping and getting into trouble as they are sealed in with 7ft high walls. What does worry me if they get into the garden for long periods of time is that fact that they will just eat all of the plants that I have spent all year planting and getting right.
So the only way that I could think of was to video the rabbits for a period of time and then see if I could catch on camera George’s escape route. Below is the video that I managed to shoot.
As you can see he was getting out, off camera and therefore it was nothing to do with the fence at all. In fact on investigation of the left hand side of the hutch (far left on camera) there was a very small gap between the hutch and the all, with no over hang on there. That was how he must have been getting out. The gap was tiny and that would explain why only George could ever get out, because Jeremy is bigger than George.
I like the video, as watching the two rabbits makes them look so human. Once George is out he almost goes up to Jeremy as if to say “you not coming out for bit to?”. Jeremy would then reply with “how do you get out George?” and then proceed to get on his hind legs trying to scale the fence only to resort in a failed attempt. They really do have such great personallities these rabbits.
So I suppose the only thing that remains is how will he find a way out next? Maybe he will learn to high jump and then I will be stuck for ideas to keep them in!
Its funny isn’t it how for so long over the last few weeks I have had very little to blog about, and then all of a sudden there is so much to say that you need lots of posts to do it. For this reason this post is a mix of this and that, that has been happening over the last couple of days.
About a week ago now Daphne (our female breeding budgie) hatched another two young. They are both coming along nicely and seem to be developing well. They have even coped with the moving of the aviary (see below). Another couple of weeks and they should really start to look like littlle budgies. At the same time however Goldie is not doing to well. She had a lot of mess around her bottom this morning and when Helen cleaned her up it is clear that she is bunged up with something. A trip to the vet means that she is on Antibiotics. Hopefully she will pull through in a day or two.
Yesterday and today was the big aviary move ready for concreting underneath the aviary. We first had to dismantle the shed and avairy then it could be moved onto the patio that was constructed a few months ago. There is was part reassembled so that the birds could go back in there for the next week or so while the concreting and electrics are done.
We have been waiting all day today for the order to arrive from Berrys (the local builders merchant) and as I write this the materials are still not here! Therefore today has been tidying up this and that.
Finally the rabbits. They too have not escaped the moving of the aviary, as moving it meant their pen was now open. Therefore they have been relaxing in the sun all afternoon in the old rabbit run. I think they have quite enjoyed siting in the shade next to each other, eating grass and apples. They certainly looked relaxed.
Working away on Saturday on a clients website I decided to open the window in the office and take a look at the newly (almost) completed garden and admire the view for a little break. To my amazement I found two rabbits running around eating all the foliage in the garden.
Now for anyone that has been round to our house over the last month or so will have un doubtably been sheperded into the garden by my better half in order to show you the livestock living accommodation. The birds live in the aviary and next door to them are the rabbits in their newly built rabbit run. We have built them a fenced off run as they like to run about a bit. Previously (in the old house) they ran around the garden and where free to come and go as they pleased. However this meant that no plants or flowers could be left at or near ground level as they ate them all. So now we built then a run area so they can run around, with one prickly fern thing in the middle, and that way they cannot get into the main garden and eat all the plants.
We first of all what we all thought would be a plants that they would not really be interested in eating they love. In fact the plant in their run now no longer resembles a plant at all, rather a carefully sculptured work of art, eating away to perfection to give it a bare bottom and thick top. In fact George loved it so much that as I looked out the window the other day I found him actually sat in the plant munching his way through it.
Worse still is that they have obviously learnt how to escape from their run area, which has a fence around 600mm high, which I why I saw then running round the whole garden eating plants in sight. Clever rabbits as they have probably been plotting this for weeks, and then made their move. So when we finish off the garden in the summer holidays we are going to have to adapt the rabbit fencing somehow in order to prevent them escaping. Just when I though the garden was coming to and end as well!
It has now been 4 long weeks since the budgies were born and this week as seen both of them venture out of their box for the first time. Bruce (who may yet still be a girl!) is a lot more adventurous than Eddie as he has been out most of the time.
Eddie still seems a little unsteady on his feet although he is the most beautiful yellow and blue colours, not to dissimilar to Stanley. He still stays sat in the box most of the time waiting for mum (or dad for that matter) to bring along the next meal. He doesn’t seem to have developed as well as Bruce but I am sure he will catch up. Bruce seems to rather large for a 4 – 5 week old baby budgie, in fact I think he is probably larger than Christina. She has had to be isolated from the babies as she has been pecking them, causing a small cut on Eddie’s face.
Mum and Dad (Niles and Daphne) are still in true romance (see photo below). They take it in turns to feed the little ones although I am sure that it will not be long until they are fending for themselves.
